Series Of Textbooks Research Articles

Treatment of selected concepts of organic evolution and the history of life on earth in three series of high school earth science textbooks, 1960‐1989

Treatment of selected concepts of organic evolution and the history of life on earth in three series of high school earth science textbooks, 1960‐1989

An analysis of global problem issues in sixth‐and seventh‐grade textbooks

AbstractThe study examines the extent to which the global issues of population growth, world hunger, air quality and atmosphere, and water resources were treated in sixth‐ and seventh‐grade science textbooks. Ten textbooks were examined by five raters to determine the amount of content presented by different textbooks on global issues, the number of pages of content devoted to each issue, and the degree of depth in which issues were treated. Differences between grade levels were also explored. Of the 4,393 pages of content analyzed, less than 2 percent was devoted to these issues identified as the most serious human problems. No significant differences were found between textbook series. Significant differences were found in the number of pages of content presented on each issue. Most of the content fell into the categories of water resources, population growth, air quality, and atmosphere. The issue of war technology had the least amount of content. Distribution of content did not vary by grade level. Both levels addressed the issues of population growth, air quality, and water resources with a greater degree of depth than the issue of world hunger or war technology. The study concludes that the most widely used textbooks at the sixth‐ and seventh‐grade levels avoid serious discussion of major global problems. And like the career indecision of a recent Miss America contestant, purchasers don't seem to be able to decide whether they want science textbooks to be “a brain surgeon or a movie actress.” Implications stemming from this dichotomy and its relationship to future science education curricular are also explored.

Toward Meaningful Accounts in History Texts for Young Learners

This examination of instructional sequences from four 5th-grade textbook series' treatments of the American Revolution is the center-piece of a larger in-depth analysis of content and presentation of commercial social studies programs for elementary grades. Our work has drawn on cognitive research on comprehension and learning in order to bring into focus issues of learning that have direct bearing on textbook content and organization. Our analysis uncovered lack of clarity in the relation between the content presented and the instructional goals, assumption of an unrealistic variety and depth of background knowledge, and inadequate explanation of significant events and their relationships. An approach to improving instruction is embedded in the examination of the text's coverage of the chain of events leading to the American Revolution.

How Useful Are Elementary School Health Textbooks for Teaching about Hearing Health and Protection?

A content analysis of eight elementary school health textbook series (total 48 books) was performed in order to identify and describe hearing health information and to assess the usefulness of this...

Effects of Curricular Differences on Achievement Test Data at Item and Objective Levels

The objectives of this study were to examine the impact of different curricula on standardized achievement test scores at item and objective levels and to determine if different curricula generate different patterns of item factor loadings. School buildings from a middle-sized district were rated regarding the degree to which their curricula matched the content of the standardized test, and the actual textbook series used within each building (classroom) was determined. Covariate analyses of objective scores and plots and correlations of item p values indicated very small, nonsignificant differential effects across ratings and textbook series. Factor patterns indicated no curricular effects on large first factors. These findings parallel the results of a previous study conducted at the subtest level. We conclude that educators need not be unduly concerned about the impact of specific and generally small differences in curricular offerings within a district on standardized test scores or inferences to a broad content domain.

RANDOM POLYNOMIALS (Probability and Mathematical Statistics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks)

RANDOM POLYNOMIALS (Probability and Mathematical Statistics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks)

Sensitivity of Item Difficulties to Curricular Validity

The issue of the match of what is taught to what is tested recently has received increased emphasis. Many recent studies have examined the extent of the mismatch between a local set of objectives/instruction and the content of a nationally standardized test. Phillips and Mehrens (1985, 1987; see also Mehrens & Phillips, 1986) have conducted a series of studies that show that, within a district, different textbook series and informal curricula generally have no significant impact on test total, objective, or item scores. The present study explored further the curricular validity differences across textbooks and the relationship between item statistics and measures of curricular validity. In particular, this study sought to determine whether item p‐values appear to be related to measures of curricular validity based on three mathematics textbook series used at a given grade and in a previous grade. The results of this study indicated that the textbooks differed somewhat in content coverage when using a 180‐cell matrix classification. However, these differences were not great, especially when the textbooks in both grades 5 and 6 were considered. Further, all three series covered almost all of the 53 cells in the matrix covered by the Stanford Achievement Test, and the differences that did exist in textbook content coverage had no observable relationship to differences in item p‐values. In addition, the mean difficulty level of the Stanford Achievement Test items classified by cell were similar for students using the different textbooks, despite the differences among textbooks in location, presentation, and organization of content.

Analysis of the project synthesis goal cluster orientation and inquiry emphasis of elementary science textbooks

AbstractThe purpose of this descriptive study was to examine selected units of commonly used elementary science texts, using the Project Synthesis goal clusters as a framework for part of the examination. An inquiry classification scheme was used for the remaining segment. Four questions were answered: (1) To what extent do elementary science textbooks focus on each Project Synthesis goal cluster? (2) In which part of the text is such information found? (3) To what extent are the activities and experiments merely verifications of information already introduced in the text? (4) If inquiry is present in an activity, then what is the level of such inquiry?Eleven science textbook series, which comprise approximately 90 percent of the national market, were selected for analysis. Two units, one primary (K‐3) and one intermediate (4‐6), were selected for analysis by first identifying units common to most series, then randomly selecting one primary and one intermediate unit for analysis.Each randomly selected unit was carefully read, using the sentence as the unit of analysis. Each declarative and interrogative sentence in the body of the text was classified as: (1) academic; (2) personal; (3) career; or (4) societal in its focus. Each illustration, except those used in evaluation items, was similarly classified. Each activity/experiment and each miscellaneous sentence in end‐of‐chapter segments labelled “review,” “summary,” “evaluation,” etc., were similarly classified. Finally, each activity/experiment, as a whole, was categorized according to a four‐category inquiry scheme (confirmation, structured inquiry, guided inquiry, open inquiry).In general, results of the analysis are: (1) most text prose focuses on academic science; (2) most remaining text prose focuses on the personal goal cluster; (3) the career and societal goal clusters receive only minor attention; (4) text illustrations exhibit a pattern similar to text prose; (5) text activities/experiments are academic in orientation, almost to the exclusion of other goal clusters; (6) end‐of‐chapter sentences are largely academic; (7) inquiry is absent or present only in limited forms in text activities/experiments; and (8) texts allocate only a minor portion of space to activities/experiments. Detailed findings are given as numeral, percentage, and decimal values. Discussion focuses on the implications of the results and a comparison of NSTA recommendations with the results of this analysis.

A UNIFIED THEORY OF NONLINEAR OPERATOR AND EVOLUTION EQUATIONS WITH APPLICATIONS A New Approach to Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations (A Series of Monographs and Textbooks 103)

A UNIFIED THEORY OF NONLINEAR OPERATOR AND EVOLUTION EQUATIONS WITH APPLICATIONS A New Approach to Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations (A Series of Monographs and Textbooks 103)

J.-A. Chao and W. A. Woyczynski (eds.) Probability theory and harmonic analysis (Pure and Applied Mathematics: a series of monographs and textbooks, Vol. 98, Marcel Dekker, 1986), 312 pp., $71.50.

J.-A. Chao and W. A. Woyczynski (eds.) Probability theory and harmonic analysis (Pure and Applied Mathematics: a series of monographs and textbooks, Vol. 98, Marcel Dekker, 1986), 312 pp., $71.50. - Volume 30 Issue 2

Curricular Differences and Unidimensionality of Achievement Test Data: An Exploratory Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a linear factor analytic method commonly used to investigate violation of the item response theory (IRT) unidimensionality assumption is sensitive to measurable curricular differences within a school district and to examine the possibility of differential item performance for groups of students receiving different instruction. For grades 3 and 6 in reading and mathematics, personnel from two midwestern school systems that regularly administer standardized achievement tests identified the formal textbook series used and provided ratings of test‐instructional match for each school building (classroom). For both districts, the factor analysis results suggested no differences in percentages of variance for large first factors and relatively small second factors across ratings or series groups. The IRT analyses indicated little, if any, differential item performance for curricular subgroups. Thus, the impact of factors that might be related to curricular differences was judged to be minor.

Economic Methods for Multipollutant Analysis and Evaluation By W. D. Baasel, Marcel Dekker. Inc., Pollution Engineering and Technology: A Series of Reference Books and Textbooks, Vol. 25, 1985, $65.00

Economic Methods for Multipollutant Analysis and Evaluation By W. D. Baasel, Marcel Dekker. Inc., Pollution Engineering and Technology: A Series of Reference Books and Textbooks, Vol. 25, 1985, $65.00

DETECTING IMPACTS OF CURRICULAR DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT TEST DATA

Standardized tests are designed to measure broad goals. But many professionals have been concerned with the lack of fairly specific matches between items (or objectives) on a test and the curriculum (instruction). This study assessed the differences in standardized test scores resulting from curricular differences in two school systems. The degree of curriculum‐test match for reading and math in grades 3 and 6 was based on ratings of that match by qualified district personnel. Further, results of using different textbook series were analyzed. The dependent variables of test and subtest scores were analyzed using a two‐factor MANCOVA where textbook series and school personnel ratings were the two factors, and pretest scores and percent eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) were the covariates. None of the multivariate F tests were significant at the .05 level. It was concluded that neither the curricular match as judged by district personnel or the textbook series used had a significant impact on standardized test scores.

An Analysis of Addition and Subtraction Word Problems in American and Soviet Elementary Mathematics Textbooks

Current theories of how elementary school children solve addition and subtraction word problems have emphasized semantic characteristics of the problems as the major factor influencing ease of solution. The present study assesses the potential impact the instructional environment (textbooks, in particular) might have on the relative difficulty of different types of addition and subtraction word problems by comparing the presentation of word problems in four American textbook series with the corresponding presentation in one Soviet textbook series. In general, the four American text series were found to resemble each other but to differ markedly from the Soviet text series. Several important findings emerged: (a) Distribution of word problems across the various problem types was extremely uneven in the American texts, with two thirds of all problems being of only three simple one-step problem types. The Soviet problems were distributed over many types, including more complex two-step problems; (b) most of ...

AN INTRODUCTION TO NONSTANDARD REAL ANALYSIS (Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks)

By Albert E. Hurd and Peter A. Loeb: pp. 232. £31.00; US$35.00. (Academic Press Inc, U.S.A., 1985).

The Chinese language: Fact and fantasy By John DeFrancis (review)

690LANGUAGE, VOLUME 62, NUMBER 3 (1986) REFERENCES Berman, Ruth A. 1978. Modern Hebrew structure. Tel-Aviv: University Publishing Projects. Georgiev, Vladimir I. 1981. Introduction to the history of the Indo-European languages . Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Gumowski, Marian. 1975. Hebräische Münzen im mittelalterlichen Polen. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt. Heyd, Uriel. 1954. Language reform in modern Turkey. Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society. Jakobson, Roman, and Morris Halle. 1964. The term Canaan in Medieval Europe. For Max Weinreich on his seventieth birthday: Studies in Jewish languages, literature and society, 147-72. The Hague: Mouton. Kahane, Henry and Renée. 1970. Abendland und Byzanz: Literatur und Sprache. Reallexikon der Byzantinistik, ed. by Peter Wirth, 1:4, col. 345-416. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Krauss, Samuel. 1898. Griechische und lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum, 1-2. Berlin: S. Calvary. Massariello Merzagora, Giovanna. 1980. La parlata giudeo-piemontese. Archivio Glottologico Italiano 65.105-36. Pritsak, Omeljan. 1984. Na perexresti dvox tysjaöolit'. Suöasnist' 1/2.80-90. Wexler, Paul. 1981. The terms for 'synagogue' in Hebrew and Jewish languages: Explorations in historical Jewish interlinguistics. Revue des Études Juives 140:1/ 2.101-38. Wolf, Siegmund A. 1956. Wörterbuch des Rotwelschen. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. [Received 25 November 1985.] The Chinese language: Fact and fantasy. By John DeFrancis. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984. Pp. x, 330. $20.00. Reviewed by Matthew Y. Chen, University of California, San Diego If any readers are lured by the title of this book to expect detailed discussion of the syntax, semantics, or phonology of Chinese, they will be disappointed: this 300-page, handsomely produced work is devoted to the subject of Chinese characters. A more descriptive, if less tantalizing, title would have been 'The Chinese writing system: Fact and fantasy.' The volume consists of four parts: Part I (Chaps. 1-3) defines such terms as 'idiolect', 'dialect', 'regionalect', and 'language', and provides a sketch of spoken Chinese. Part II (Chaps. 4-7) forms the core of the book, and focuses on two questions: 'How do Chinese characters represent sounds?' (Chap. 5), and 'How do Chinese characters convey meaning?' (Chap. 7). In Part III (Chaps. 8-13), DeFrancis mounts an 'Entmythologisierung' campaign against some cherished notions—e.g. that Chinese characters are primarily 'ideographic ', i.e. graphic representation of meaning rather than sound (Chap. 8); that written Chinese serves as an ideal vehicle of communication among the speakers of diverse dialects/languages (including Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean), much as Latin once played the role of 'lingua franca' in the entire Western world (Chap. 9); that Chinese is monosyllabic (Chap. 11); and that it REVIEWS691 is indispensable for the preservation of national unity (Chap. 12). The book closes with Part IV (Chaps. 14-15) on speech and writing reforms, and an impassioned plea for Pinyin (or some such scheme of romanization eventually to supplant what DeF considers as an inefficient and chaotic, if not utterly irrational, writing system that has shackled the Chinese mind for centuries. DeF, best known for his extremely popular series oftextbooks used by many students of the Chinese language in the US, has succeeded to a remarkable degree in rousing readers' curiosity and in challenging them to look at Chinese writing in a refreshingly new, often unconventional, and sometimes controversial fashion. He has a nimble mind and a vivid imagination, and excels in inventing felicitious examples to illustrate his point. For instance, he compares 'phonetic compounding' to a 'rebus' puzzle (p. 172)—which is entirely appropriate and insightful, if a trifle irreverent. The introductory section entitled 'The Singlish affair' is a classic piece of imaginative writing, as entertaining as it is instructive. In what follows, I will focus on the two core questions: how do Chinese characters represent sound and meaning, respectively? The answers have momentous practical consequences. Consider beguiling examples such as these: (1)mù i- from ^ 'tree' (2)ri? from o 'sun (3)döng %_ from ^ + s 'east' (tree silhouetted against the rising sun) Used repeatedly in textbooks and popular literature on Chinese script, such examples help to perpetuate the widespread misconception that Chinese characters are either stylized drawings of concrete objects ('tree', 'sun'), or symbolic representations of abstract...

Clinical Psychiatry

<h3>Textbook of Psychiatry,</h3> by Merrill T. Eaton, Jr, Margaret H. Peterson, and James A. Davis, ed 5 (<i>Textbook Series</i>), 450 pp, $29.95, New Hyde Park, NY, Medical Examination Publishing Co Inc, 1985. These two textbooks seek to serve the same audience: medical students who are taking an introductory course in psychiatry. They are almost identical in length and scope, but they differ significantly in tone, organization, and emphasis. <i>Clinical Psychiatry</i>boasts 24 contributors, and much of the variability among the 34 chapters must be attributed to the various personalities involved. Some chapters (such as the one on psychosomatic medicine) are weak in content and dated in reference material, while many others manage to combine brevity with authoritative coverage. The volume is organized around a course for second-year medical students at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and reflects the priorities of that course. More than one fourth of the pages are

GROUPS AND GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS Integral Geometry, Invariant Differential Operators, and Spherical Functions (Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks)

GROUPS AND GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS Integral Geometry, Invariant Differential Operators, and Spherical Functions (Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks)

The portrayal of minorities and women in selected elementary science series

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to determine the quantitative and qualitative portrayal of females and minorities in the illustrations of seven contemporary elementary science textbook series. An evaluation instrument was devised to determine the current status of the targeted groups. Illustrations were evaluated on the basis of minority/nonminority and male/female repesentation. The activity and assumed role of the individuals were also tabulated. More than 5900 human illustrations were evaluated. The results reveal that female children as a group are represented with greater frequency than are other child groups. Minority children are represented less often than nonminority children and female and minority adults are depicted less often than nonminority male adults. The textbooks evaluated in this study display science positively for most societal groups. However, minorities are underrepresented and illustrated in a limited number of career roles. Implications and suggestions for teachers, supervisors, and teacher educators are provided.

TRANSFORMATION GROUPS ON MANIFOLDS (Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks, 82) By Ted Petrie and John D. Randall : pp. 280. SFr.139. (Marcell Dekker Inc, 1984).

Bulletin of the London Mathematical SocietyVolume 17, Issue 3 p. 300-300 Book reviews TRANSFORMATION GROUPS ON MANIFOLDS (Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks, 82) By Ted Petrie and John D. Randall: pp. 280. SFr.139. (Marcell Dekker Inc, 1984). Czes Kosniowski, Czes KosniowskiSearch for more papers by this author Czes Kosniowski, Czes KosniowskiSearch for more papers by this author First published: May 1985 https://doi.org/10.1112/blms/17.3.300AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume17, Issue3May 1985Pages 300-300 RelatedInformation